Professional Services Engineer

Description

Kela is a defense technology startup pioneering next-generation command-and-control and data infrastructure systems. We empower defense organizations with robust, scalable, and secure platforms that integrate diverse sensors and AI to deliver real-time battlefield intelligence. Backed by leading investors, Kela combines Israeli innovation with global mission impact.

This role owns the technical solution for our customers end to end, from designing the deployment for a specific site and mission, through integration and commissioning, to keeping it running and evolving in production.

You are the person who knows how the system actually behaves in the field, and the person customers and internal teams come to when the answer isn't obvious.

Most of the work is from the offices, with travel to customer sites for surveys, deployments, and hands-on work.

Requirements

What you'll do

• Lead site setup and integration: stand up new deployments, configure and integrate the full stack (cameras, radars, networking, edge compute, the Kela platform), and validate the system against mission requirements
• Support pre-deployment work - site surveys, POCs, feasibility assessments, technical input to proposals and customer requirement documents
• Be the technical owner for one or more projects: follow them from day one, know the mission and the customers, and hold the deepest context on every detail
• Own ongoing maintenance and upgrades across the production fleet - version rollouts, config changes, hotfixes
• Troubleshoot issues that span application, infrastructure, and network layers - the kind that don't have an obvious owner
• Act as an escalation point for support and field ops engineers, and work closely with R&D, systems, algo, and design when issues need to go deeper
• Feed the field back into the product: turn recurring problems and customer needs into requirements R&D can act on
• Write and maintain the run books, docs, and tooling that make the next deployment easier than the last one
• Communicate clearly with customers and internal teams, especially when things are time-sensitive

What we need

• 4+ years in solution engineering, professional services, or production engineering - customer-facing, in mission-critical environments
• Systems-level thinking: able to look at a site, a mission, and a set of constraints and produce a deployment design that works
• Strong Linux fundamentals and hands-on experience operating Kubernetes in production
• Networking across the stack - complex topologies, cellular, satellite, VPN/overlay networks - with real experience debugging connectivity on live sites
• Proficient in Bash and Python for automation and one-off investigations
• Hands-on with databases and storage: queries, diagnostics, understanding what's happening under the hood
• Able to read code and debug logs to trace issues to root cause
• Fluent with GitHub as a daily tool
• Comfortable presenting technical material to customers, including senior and non-technical stakeholders
• Precise, analytical, and reflective - you draw conclusions from data, not instinct, and you make sure the same problem doesn't bite you twice
• Strong ownership and a can-do mindset: you take initiative, drive tasks to completion, and finish the half-finished thing you walked past
• Learns quickly and operates effectively in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities
• Clear communicator, in writing and on calls, with technical and non-technical people alike
• Willing to participate in the team's on-call rotation as part of the regular routine